How Race is Lived
in America
Correspondents of The New York Times
Times Books
394 pgs. US$27.50/C$41.95

Questions deserve
answers

By Steven Martinovichweb
posted May 28, 2001

How
Race is Lived in America doesn't pretend to be a methodical look at
the role race plays in America today, a fact that New York Times executive
editor Joseph Lelyveld readily admits in his overly self-congratulatory
introduction. That fact is both a benefit and a hindrance to what was
an impressively large project launched by the Times. That project was
a yearlong examination of the role of race by fifteen reporters that culminated
in a six week stretch of stories in the Times with an eye to answer the
question: What are race relations like today?

Judging by this book, not terribly good. Although the reporters ostensibly
covered fifteen very different situations, everything from the set of
a miniseries to the views of cops in Harlem, How Race is Lived in America
reads like fifteen minor variations of the same story. Even the stories
that purport to be positive leave the reader decidedly depressed about
race relations.

Take, for example, Steven A. Holmes' look at drill sergeants at Fort
Knox, Kentucky. Focusing on Staff Sgt. Harry Feyer and Staff Sgt. Earnest
Williams, who are white and black respectively, Holmes separately manages
to get the men to reveal their honest feelings about each other. Feyer
refers to his co-worker as his "battle buddy" but wondered why
Williams didn't trust him more. Williams' answer why was fairly clear.

"Williams confided he thought little of Feyer as a soldier and even
less of him as a leader," wrote Holmes, in a passage that must have
made for some uncomfortable reading in the barricks when the story ran
in the Times.

Feyer and Williams worked closely together every day. Each was responsible
for the other. Their desks were only three feet apart. They only lived
200 yards apart. Neither had ever stepped foot in the other's home. So
much for the colorblind army.

Repeating throughout the stories are two constant themes. One, whites
are tired of hearing about slavery and racism and want to move past America's
ill treatment of African-Americans. While they are sympathetic to the
day-to-day struggles that people of color face, they believe that things
are different today and people are more enlightened. Those beliefs are
in stark contrast to the opinions of blacks, or at least those in this
book. Blacks believe that not enough discussion has taken place about
America's past and that it is hard to trust whites because of the constant
slights - both real and imagined - that blacks must suffer with. After
fifteen essays hammering home the same points, it's hard to come out at
the end with any positive feelings about the future.

There is also another reason for the sameness of many of the stories:
they deal mostly with whites and blacks. The Times reporters apparently
forgot there are other races living in America. Washington Governor Gary
Locke, the nation's first Asian-American to hold that post, makes an appearance
to boast how he uses his race as a political tool while Hispanics only
make cursory appearances - and only then to spotlight the problems blacks
face. Native Americans fare even worse with a solitary appearance in a
slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, North Carolina and only then to act as nearly
invisible players in a drama that involves whites, blacks and Hispanics.

That concentration on whites and blacks means that How Race is Lived
in America seems more like a carefully crafted message to whites rather
than a considered look at the state of race relations. That's where this
book fails. By not attempting to cover a wider spectrum of people - did
we really need actor Charles S. Dutton to explain his feelings on black-white
relations when fourteen other people have already done so? - the book
never really answers its question. We are instead left with fifteen stories
that make for interesting, if rather uncomfortable, reading but in the
end seem to lead to nowhere.

Despite those significant weaknesses, How Race is Lived in America
can serve as a useful reminder that although most believe the world is
improving, there is a significant amount of people who aren't as happy
with the state of the world. Whether their grievances are real or imagined,
millions of people believe that they continue to be disenfranchised because
of the color of their skin. How Race is Lived in America can't
tell you how deep that the state of this dissatisfaction is and nor does
it pretend to have any real answers but it at least airs opinions that
most of us - and that means people of all colors - keep well below the
surface of our public thoughts.

If you can manage to ignore the Message that the Times editors felt needed
to be hammered into readers - particularly the white ones - and it's unpardonable
overlooking of issues that don't deal exclusively with whites or blacks,
perhaps you can take away the need for greater honesty between people.
That alone might be worth the discomfort you'll feel while reading this
book.

Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer and editor in chief of Enter
Stage Right.

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Charles Morse blasts away at the leftists who called John Ashcroft a
racist. They, he says, are responsible for today's racism and bigotry,
not conservatism

Fanning
the flames of racism by Charles A. Morse (March 6, 2000)
America's Achilles heel is being exploited by those on the left, writes
Charles A. Morse, despite the shady past of some of them